This year CBCA launched its first ever member demographic survey to help us understand more about CBCA Member businesses, organizations and individuals. Our goal was to generate a baseline and, over time, broad trends as we work towards creating a more equitable and inclusive membership culture for all.

We asked a series of questions related to identities historically and currently affected by oppressive systems so that we can work toward ensuring our organization and membership program are not contributing to exclusionary practices but rather breaking down barriers and welcoming members from all identities.

We’d like to share with you what we learned and do so with humility and a recognition that the categories are inherently imperfect as questions about identity are complex and evolving.

We received a 45% response rate after sending the survey to all of CBCA’s 290 Member organizations, businesses and individuals. Of the responses we received for organizations/companies/institutions:

  • 20% are owned or led by an individual who is Black, Indigenous, Latinx and/or a Person of Color (BILPOC).
  • 17% are owned or led by an individual who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or questioning), intersex, and asexual (or allies, aromantic, or agender) (LGBTQIA).
  • 6% are owned or led by an individual with a disability
  • 65% are owned or led by a female and 35% male; 0% non-binary

Our survey unfortunately did not allow for an understanding of intersectional identities, but we are able to estimate that 43% of our institutional members’ leaders identify with a historically marginalized community (which does not account for gender).

We also asked about these identities for our individual members of which we found that:

  • 19% are BILPOC
  • 19% are LGBTQIA+
  • 13% have a disability
  •  81% are female; 19% male; 0% non-binary

The above results are just a summary of the findings, so please read the full results to learn more. Click here to view the question summaries results.

This survey is one step in what has been and will continue to be a long journey toward building community and belonging for all, a step that will allow us some accountability to ourselves and our community. While we have not set demographic goals for membership, we have for the Board of Directors, and we are currently working toward 51% of our board representing historically marginalized groups to better reflect and support our entire community equitably. If you’d like to read more about that process and progress to our goals with the Board of Directors, read this article.

We are working with CBCA’s Equity, Inclusivity, Diversity and Accessibility Committee to define goals and next steps for the membership program as well.

If you have any feedback on this process or thoughts on how CBCA can create more space for individuals with different backgrounds, identities and experiences, please reach out.